Tag Archives: ebol More stats

The college football bowl season kicks off this week with a slate of six games on Saturday. Twenty-fifth-ranked Boise State is the only school ranked in the top 25 in action during the first day of games with most of the bigger names taking the field in two weeks. There are games almost daily with 40 games airing from Saturday through Jan. 1. The season concludes a week later with the fourth annual College Football Playoff National Championship on January 8 from the new $1.5 billion Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

Heisman Trophy winner Baker Mayfield has the Oklahoma Sooners in the running for its first national championship since 2000. (Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)

The NCAA abandoned its disastrous plan to have the sport’s two marquee semifinal playoff games on New Year’s Eve. Total TV viewership plummeted from 28.3 million to 18.6 million in 2015, the first year with the semifinals on New Year’s Eve. TV numbers rebounded slightly in 2016, but the two games will take place on New Year’s Day this year with four college football blue bloods. The Rose Bowl matchup pits Georgia versus Oklahoma at 5:45, while Alabama and Clemson square off at 8:45 in the Sugar Bowl.

The bowl games feature the usual array of title sponsorships from all industries with games in the playoff system commanding as much as $20 million while lower-tier games can be had for less than $500,000 in some cases. The Cheribundi Tart Cherry Boca Raton Bowl and Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl are both likely to command attention for the originality of their new sponsors this year.

A welcome reprieve this year: no teams with losing records in bowl games. The NCAA had to relax its requirements the past two years regarding qualifying for a bowl when enough teams didn’t make the cut. The result was six teams with losing records getting bowl invites compared to four teams total in the previous 45 years.

ESPN is broadcasting the vast majority of the 41 postseason games with rights to all but 10 of the games, although five of those 10 will appear on ESPN2 or ABC, both also owned by Walt Disney. ESPN signed a deal in 2012 for $470 million over 12 years to broadcast the college football playoffs.

The two semifinal playoff games are the two most expensive tickets on the secondary market. The median price for the Sugar Bowl is $375, while the Rose Bowl checks in at $295, according to Vivid Seats. The cheapest is the Foster Farms Bowl at $38.

Alabama is the favorite to win its fifth national title in nine years with the latest odds favoring the Crimson Tide at 17/10. Clemson is next at 11/4, followed by Georgia (3/1) and Oklahoma (13/4).

Futures on the world’s most popular cryptocurrency surged as much as 26 percent in their debut session on Cboe Global Markets Inc.’s exchange, triggering two temporary trading halts designed to calm the market. Initial volume exceeded dealers’ expectations, while traffic on Cboe’s website was so heavy that it caused delays and temporary outages. The website’s problems had no impact on trading systems, Cboe said. Bitcoin’s spot price rose.

“It is rare that you see something more volatile than bitcoin, but we found it: bitcoin futures,” said Zennon Kapron, managing director of Shanghai-based consulting firm Kapronasia.

The launch of futures on a regulated exchange is a watershed for bitcoin, whose surge this year has captivated everyone from mom-and-pop speculators to Wall Street trading firms. The Cboe contracts, soon to be followed by similar offerings from CME Group Inc. and Nasdaq Inc., should make it easier for mainstream investors to bet on the cryptocurrency’s rise or fall.

Bitcoin wagers have until now been mostly limited to venues with little or no oversight, deterring institutional money managers and exposing some users to the risk of hacks and market breakdowns. About 20 trading firms actively participated, Cboe Chairman Ed Tilly said in a Bloomberg Television interview.

Bitcoin futures expiring in January were 18 percent higher at $17,710 as of 12:25 p.m. in New York from an opening level of $15,000, on 3,561 contracts traded.

“It was smooth, and bitcoin traders don’t seem to be put off by futures,” said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst in London at online trading firm Oanda. “There was a fear that short selling would have an adverse impact on price, but we haven’t seen that yet.”

The spot price climbed 4.7 percent to $16,383 from the Friday 5 p.m. close in New York, according to the composite price on Bloomberg.

The roughly $1,300 difference reflects not only the novelty of the asset but also the difficulty of using the cash-settled futures to trade against the spot, strategists said.

“In a normal, functioning market, good old arbitrage would settle this,” Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank A/S in Hellerup, Denmark, said by email. “If they were deliverable you could arbitrage the life out of it.”

Proponents of regulated bitcoin derivatives say the contracts will increase market transparency and boost liquidity, but skeptics abound. JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon has called bitcoin a “fraud,” while China’s government has cracked down on cryptocurrency exchanges this year. The Futures Industry Association — a group of major banks, brokers and traders — said this month that contracts in the U.S. were rushed without enough consideration of the risks.

So far though, trading has kicked off without any major hiccups.

Dealers said volume was high for a new contract, even though it was tiny relative to more established futures. And the trading halts took effect just as Cboe had outlined in its rules. Transactions stopped for two minutes after a 10 percent gain from the opening price, and for five minutes after a 20 percent jump. Another five-minute halt will take effect if the rally extends to 30 percent, Cboe said in a notice on its website.

“It was pretty easy to trade,” Joe Van Hecke, managing partner at Chicago-based Grace Hall Trading LLC, said in a telephone interview from Charlotte, North Carolina. “I think you’ll see a robust market as time plays out.”

For now, Cboe futures account for a tiny slice of the world’s bitcoin-related bets. The notional value of contracts traded in the first eight hours totaled about $40 million. Globally, about $1.1 billion of bitcoin traded against the U.S. dollar during the same period, according to Cryptocompare.com.

Some people who would like to trade futures are having a hard time accessing the market because not all brokers are supporting it initially, said Garrett See, chief executive officer of DV Chain. Participation may also be limited because of higher capital requirements and tighter risk limits, See said.

“We’re in the early stages here, and there’s not enough professional liquidity from the big market makers who can provide depth and hold in the movements,” said Stephen Innes, head of trading for Asia Pacific at Oanda Corp. “It’s going to be a learning curve.”

It’s been painful for investors stuck on the sidelines. This year alone, bitcoin is up more than 17-fold. The surge has been driven largely by demand from individuals, with technical obstacles keeping out most big money managers like mutual funds.

The new derivatives contracts should thrust bitcoin more squarely into the realm of regulators, banks and institutional investors. Both Cboe and CME on Dec. 1 got permission to offer the contracts after pledging to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission that the products don’t run afoul of the law, in a process called self-certification.

Not everyone is happy with the roll out. Exchanges failed to get enough feedback from market participants on margin levels, trading limits, stress tests and clearing, the Futures Industry Association said this month. In November, Thomas Peterffy, the billionaire chairman of Interactive Brokers Group Inc., wrote an open letter to CFTC Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo, arguing that bitcoin’s large price swings mean its futures contracts shouldn’t be allowed on platforms that clear other derivatives.

Still, Interactive Brokers is offering its customers access to the futures, with greater restrictions. The firm’s clients won’t be able to go short, and Interactive’s margin requirement, or how much investors have to set aside as collateral, will be at least 50 percent. That’s a stricter threshold than both Cboe’s and CME’s.

The start of futures trading is an important milestone for bitcoin’s shift from the fringes of finance toward the mainstream, but it could be some time before the cryptocurrency becomes a key part of investor portfolios — if it ever does.

“You never say never,” David Riley, who helps oversee $57 billion as head of credit strategy at BlueBay Asset Management LLP in London, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “But I do think we’re quite some way from making cryptocurrencies even a relatively small part of some of the funds we manage at the moment.”

2017 has been a breakout year for crypto — with Bitcoin surpassing $10,000 and more than $3.8 billion raised this year in ICOs. We’ve seen truly mind-bending appreciation (like Ethereum’s 50X gains YTD) and witnessed the beginnings of countless new projects. In all the funding frenzy, we’ve also likely sown the seeds of some of the larger calamities that will befall the space.

One thing is certain: this technology has been distilled to practice and open sourced to world. It’s out of (Pandora’s?) box, and there’s no putting it back.

Pundits are quick to argue, given wild asset appreciation, that we are in something that looks like the internet bubble. Even if this is true, the question is whether this is the year 1994 or the very twilight of 1999. So without further ado, let’s make our way to 2022, and see what world we may be inheriting.

Short of entire system failure, Bitcoin is currently the most battle-tested crypto asset — and we are still early in the exponential curve. Many along the sidelines may call tulip bubble, our society has never had an element so global and so artificially scarce before. [Disclosure: this is not investment advice; author invests in and holds crypto assets.]

Despite this year’s appreciation, usage is outpacing Bitcoin’s price. Daily transaction volumes (in USD) for Bitcoin are currently around 100X what they were at the beginning of this year, when the price was hovering closer to $1,000 per Bitcoin. This volume growth is while most institutional managers are still sitting on the sidelines, waiting for custodianship technology to mature.

Even the corruption use cases alone still have orders of magnitude more growth for total market capitalization of Bitcoin. If just one country’s worth alleged corruption confiscations were moved to Bitcoin to escape seizure, it would nearly 5X the total amount of value trusted to the currency today.

One of the biggest areas facing disruption will be electronically deliverable (and verifiable) services: compute, bandwidth, and similar. Advances in blockchain technology will make it easier for marketplaces to form — and bring a huge amount of supply online. Why have every hosting company compete for user acquisition and retention, set up billing accounts, etc. when you can simply hook your equipment into a standardized service that has payments baked in?

We expect to see one or more major digital commodities traded readily. We may even see miners for hire — who will provide their hash power to secure a particular coin with a contractual bounty — above and beyond the transaction and block rewards the protocols offer natively.

Still uncertain are which protocols, existing or yet to be created, will be the winners. The winners will naturally bring the speculators (both purely financial and node providers) required to make a market. Also in question today is how much these markets will eat into Amazon’s AWS or Google’s cloud businesses — or whether many speculative operators will run their businesses on top of these platforms.

Fully Decentralized Exchanges

Many are quick to note the challenges of building a liquid and deep market in a decentralized fashion. Current centralized exchanges — while currently minting a huge amount of profit — are eager to see how their business will evolve. Market forces will drive all decentralized order books to share and interconnect — but once the entire market is completely connected, exchanges become completely, well, exchangeable.

A major driver spurring decentralization will likely be regulation — as certain currencies or exchange of currencies becomes more heavily regulated, it will drive behavior either to institutions that have proper compliance (for institutional investors) or underground.

For instance, even if a token offering is deemed an illegal equity offering, there still may exist a market of buyers and speculators. As a historical example, look back to penny stock spamming pump and dump schemes of 10 years ago. Brokerages would block trading of equities suspected of being manipulated in their UI, but buyers would still call their brokers to manually override and ride the pump (either up or down).

There is a lot of underlying infrastructure yet to be built — to help decentralized exchanges discover and share order volume, split economics — as well as the consumer and professional trading infrastructure to make this easier and more approachable.

In 2022, many trades may not actually be settled on chain. Additional layers of abstraction off-chain is currently a very ripe area for R&D. (Consider the Lightning Network andRootstock projects.) These kinds of projects, while still in their infancy, suggest an even braver new world: where assets can be traded instantly without any public trace of their movement. The very first public cross chain swap, a trade between Litecoin and Bitcoin, just happened weeks ago. This is an area to watch closely.

New Organizations: Profits OK, Not Necessary

The increase of liquidity — both for employees and supply of risk capital — will drive more and more savvy entrepreneurs to skip registering their company in a local domain. Or cause the creation of value to happen outside of this standard corporate formula.

The “vanilla” terms that investors typically look for — and the importance of stock options for employee compensation — may no longer be the dominant way of organizing for companies. The Delaware C. Corporation itself may fall out of favor for new innovation that takes advantage of blockchain technology.

Furthermore, we will see more and more organizations created without profit as an explicit purpose. Economic activity may well be arranged more around organizations that look like public benefit or mutual corporations — and have for-profit activities take place around the fringes.

We can look to the original in-person financial exchanges as another example — one “seat” (token) was membership with equal rights and equal benefits. Profits were expected from an individual member’s own trading activity, not from ownership of the “house.”

Crypto Equities Emerge: Registered Equity Tokens

Just as more new projects will organize around a token-economy, look for more businesses to tie their ownership or value to a legal tokenized equity structure.

Easy trading, liquidity, and ability for any exchange to list the assets — these aren’t just benefits for token economies. More regulation will have to take place, but look for private equity investors and other trapped value to seek liquidity without listing on the NYSE or Nasdaq.

Consumer Experiences Won’t Be The Largest Early Battlefield

The changes in the consumer landscape will be far more macro than simply iterating and updating the platforms of the Web 2.0 and Mobile eras. When folks first deeply consider the crypto space, many will look at a decentralized system as a possible threat to existing players. “Decentralized rider-driver matching could displace Uber!” enthusiasts may note. Critics, often smug with their understanding of the current blockchain tech often quip, “there’s no way the transaction rate will be fast enough for that many rides.”

This won’t be where the changes take place. Uber is a “shaped” marketplace — which is to say, Uber the Delaware-for-profit-corporation works very hard behind the scenes to predict and wed supply and demand. It’s a lot harder for an entirely decentralized protocol to recruit non-tech-savvy drivers in a greater supply in time for Salesforce’s San Francisco Dreamforce event (a shock to the normal SF’s rideshare demand).

If crypto has a large effect on consumer experiences, the most interesting applications will likely be new models that simply weren’t possible before — rather than just eliminating existing middlemen. The early profound impacts will likely be tucked away from most consumers view — helping companies outsource infrastructure, replace many of their financial systems, and eventually outsource labor.

Just as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk has made microtasks near commodity, expect crypto systems for payment and work validation to climb up the value chain in the labor markets. Why worry about foreign exchange rates and local taxes when everything is powered through an arbitrary token of both parties choosing?

Nations Struggle With Tax Collection

Governments are currently sitting by — learning, watching, and waiting. But they don’t yet realize how existential of a thread the crypto ecosystem represents to their business of governance.

This isn’t about regulation of scammy ICOs. This is about small nations being able to collect taxes from their citizens and maintain their operations on any scale like the present.

This also isn’t about crypto being used by bad actors to launder money, avoid taxes or similar.

When everyone has a completely international, unseizable asset system at their disposal — the question becomes not if one pays taxes but where. Why repatriate value to a country that overcharges relative to the value provided?

It has never been easier to to run a massively lucrative multi-national empire from the comfort of home, and only convert a tiny fraction of one’s wealth to local currency. (Maybe save the largest expenditures take place in a lower tax jurisdiction.)

Just as Apple shelters billions in Ireland as payment for IP of products sold around the EU, expect far more corporate innovation in keeping value far away from the tax collectors.

Government Issued Crypto is Real

As more and more reserves are moved into crypto assets (the “digital gold” use case), nations will see their own currencies less viable or valued to other nations looking for safe reserves. Just this week, the US Federal Reserve publicly announced that this is an approach they are considering.

Wise nations (likely small) will launch their own crypto fiat currencies — digital currencies on a ledger with the creation and distortion controlled by the government (and presumed parity between the governments own currency).

While this misses the large point of digital currencies — and may be a short-lived “tweener” state — it will create short-term demand for that nation’s currency as an easy-to-hold, easy-to-move money that’s backed by a government.

Emergence Of Bitcoin-Denominated Yield Curve

Many countries issue USD-denominated debt, to lock in a lower interest rate than if they issued it in their own currencies — and open their debt to a wider set of investors. Crypto appreciation and volatility will be challenging to account for, but expect to see a crypto yield curve emerge as governments attempt to lock in favorable rates and reach the international investment community.

There will be many bumps along the road. History is rife with crises caused by the borrower’s domestic currency weakening beyond their expectations (or hedges). This time may not end differently, but the scope will be more international (and liquid) than ever before.

Nations Stockpile Crypto Weapons

As crypto becomes critical infrastructure, replacing much of the existing banking system, governments will seek to regain control.

Crypto weapons could have many forms: mining attacks to reduce transaction throughput and cause chaos. Attempts to break and discredit individual currencies. Backdoors to control mining infrastructure. Secretly launching their own crypto with backdoors built in. Or simple quantum computing to brute force existing monetary supply before maintainers could react.

What’s clear at this moment is just as “cyber space” became a new battle front, so too will battles be waged for control of, and access to, distributed value technologies.

Former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, center, arrives at court (Picture: AP) Donald Trump‘s former national security adviser is reportedly prepared to testify against the president.

Michael Flynn may throw Trump under the bus by telling the court he was instructed by him to contact Russians. He has already admitted that a senior member of the administration directed him to make contact with Russian officials in December 2016. Government wants to seize Martin Shkreli’s one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album The ex-adviser has pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI. It was part of a ‘plea agreement’ hearing on Friday. It’s the biggest development in the special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian meddling with the 2016 presidential election so far.

The plea agreement means Flynn fully cooperating with Mueller’s investigation. It’s the biggest development in the Russia probe so far (Picture: Getty) Mueller was guarded in the allegations he revealed in his single-count indictment. It gives credence to the suspicion Flynn and Trump’s involvement with Russia could be explosive. It’s bad news for the president — who has desperately tried to distance himself from the news for months.

The reality of charges and guilty pleas throws much doubt on Trump’s theory that Russia meddling is nothing more than Democratic drama peddled by anti-Trumpers after he won the election. And — more concerning for Trump — it gives greater weight to the chances of impeachment. Any president can be impeached if they’re convicted of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. If a clear link is found between Trump and collusion with Russia, he could be in breach of one or more parts of the constitution and, ultimately, get impeached.

Flynn stepped down from his role earlier this year following calls for him to be fired over his alleged contact with the Russian ambassador before the Republican took office. Flynn joins Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, his associate Rick Gates, and Trump’s ex-adviser George Papadopoulos in the growing list of those indicted in Mueller’s investigation.

Who else has been charged in Mueller’s investigation? Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, his associate Rick Gates, and Trump’s ex-adviser George Papadopoulos have all been indicted as part of Mueller’s investigation. Manafort and Gates were asked to surrender themselves to federal authorities back in October. Manafort has been charged with 12 counts including conspiracy against the United States.

Manafort was Trump’s campaign chairman and Gates is his former business partner and protege. Gates was forced to leave his longtime position at nonprofit America First Policies after his involvement with Manafort became apparent earlier this year. The pair were allegedly paid millions of dollars which they then laundered while working on behalf of a pro-Kremlin political party in Ukraine.

Manafort has allegedly laundered millions of dollars (Picture: AP) Rick Gates has been indicted on a number of charges (Picture: AP) George Papadopoulos lied to FBI agents The indictment files claim they were trying to hide money Ukraine paid from US authorities. Part of it reads: ‘Manafort and Gates concealed from the Unites States their work as agents of, and millions of dollars in payments from, Ukraine and its political parties and leaders.’

It continues: ‘Manafort used his hidden overseas wealth to enjoy a lavish lifestyle in the United States, without paying taxes on that income. ‘Manafort, without reporting the income to his tax preparer or the United States, spent millions of dollars on luxury goods and services for himself and his extended family through payments wired from offshore nominee accounts to United States vendors.’ The documents later add: ‘Gates aided Manafort in obtaining money from these offshore accounts, which he was instrumental in opening. ‘In total, more than $75,000,000 flowed through the offshore accounts. Manafort laundered more than $18,000,000, which was used by him to buy property, good and services in the United States.’ They have both pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

Meanwhile, Papadopoulos admitted lying about the nature of his interactions with ‘foreign nationals’ who he thought had close connections to senior Russian government officials.

We have come far as a society since the days when jokes about grabbing pussy could be dismissed as locker room banter, therefore excusable “among the guys.” It was more than slightly ironic that Billy Bush lost his job on Today, yet the person he was nodding at while listening, went on to become the President. As we began this discussion, I said we have come far. We still have light years to go before we achieve equanimity in the work place or socially.

Entitlement. It is my offering that all of this action stems from entitlement. Young OJ is the star of USC, star of the Bills, Hall of fame running back, Nicole dis’ him somehow and he gets to slash her throat. Somebody has some of his stuff in a hotel in Las Vegas so he go in and steal it. He is an absurdly harsh example, but think of all the little ones. Think of all of the HS and college athletes that have never been told NO by anyone. Think of the businessmen making decisions all the time on who gets jobs and who is promoted. Ever heard the expression “screwed her way to the top?”

Puffy bully Billy goes to the high school dance and lil Maggie Mae says that she doesn’t want to dance, but he says “oh c’mon” and gently pulls her out on the dance floor. If she quits protesting is that implied consent? If she pulls away and he doesn’t follow her is it then OK? What if Maggie Mae waits until he is the host of a TV show and then “remembers” it and comes forward?

Inertia. As with any example of crowd mentality, the memories of past offences have their own inertia. Memories can grow and shrink with them. Think of a pushy guy in High School. He slapped my wife’s ass in the kitchen 30 years later and we haven’t talked to him since. If someone reads this story and remembers that he was pushy in High School, they might remember more that he tried to force himself on them and come forth now. Does this necessarily mean that he broke any laws? Is the question of degree important if he went on to become a powerful man and there are lots of people who suddenly remember him being pushy?

Degree. With all the “outings” in the past few weeks it poses the question of exactly how far is too far. It is not OK to go on a witch hunt to prosecute someone because they might have simply offended someone. If it was, I would have spent my life in jail.

Sandusky in the locker room: obvious. Franken making gestures supposedly during a comedy skit….? Does the fact that she posed for Playboy make a difference? If a girl is supposedly “loose” does that in any way legitimize unwanted advances? What of lewd jokes in mixed settings? Coke cans? What of the advances that were unwanted, but the guy got his signals crossed and assumed a degree of consent that wasn’t there? There is a huge difference between tacky, not skillful, and a clear violation. The laws are on the books, and their intent is pretty clear to most adults, but young people trying to scratch their way up the ladder tend to take risks. Perhaps this is why so many people are coming forward after so many years. “Hey, come to think of it, that WAS NOT OK!”

Consequences. It will end up in the courts. “We believe you Anta!” It doesn’t seem fair that someone who has had one, or even a few what would be called minor errors in judgement, should have his life’s work and career voided. A first date where a guy continuing a kiss if “she” wasn’t also leaning in. I think many of us have had a bumbling moment like that. It also doesn’t seem fair that a misogynistic “mis-user” of power should become a Supreme Court Justice, or President after gloating over Grabbing Pussy. Are we still going to look the other way if “his father is a senator” or “they was just bein boys?” On the other hand this could be a very useful tool to use to break someone and ruin their career. How can we stop the “good ol boys” from covering each other’s asses without turning it into a witch hunt?

Since the current regime is doing everything they can to replace the more liberal judiciary with young eager conservatives, it is my fervent hope that they exercise skillful judgement in the application of the law, and not a liberal vs conservative issue. This could turn into yet another tool for the “right” to punish comedians, satirists, and liberal journalists.

On the tape, which surfaced weeks before the November 2016 presidential election, the former reality star can be heard bragging to TV presenter Billy Bush of grabbing women “by the p***y.”

Trump faced calls to step aside from the race after the tape went public, and apologized for the remarks, dismissing them as “locker room talk.”

However according to the Times, the president told a senator earlier this year that the tape was not genuine and repeated the claim to an adviser recently.

The president apparently sees parallels between the situation he faced after the release of the tape in 2016 and that currently faced by Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore.

Moore has faced calls to step aside by senior Republicans after being accused of sexually molesting a 14-year-old girl and making sexual advances towards several teenagers in the early 1970s, when he was in his early 30s and a district attorney.

Trump told the press at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida Tuesday that Moore had denied the claims, and of the Alabama Senate race remarked “We don’t need a liberal person in there.”

Former Trudeau supporters Hayley Zacks and Jake Hubley were arrested after confronting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about his support of the Alberta tar sands and approval of the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion, despite posturing as a ‘climate crusader’

biography

Hayley Zacks is a student and campaigner in Vancouver, BC. Her work focuses primarily on stopping major oil and gas infrastructure from impacting the West Coast. She is currently working on a Combined Honours as a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Sustainability, and International Development, with a minor in Indigenous Studies.

Jake Hubley am 24 year old community organizer in Vancouver. Jake is from Halifax, Nova Scotia, originally named Mi’ki’maki (“MI-KI-MAGI”) as the traditional unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq (“MIG-MAWK”) peoples. He has stayed in Vancouver to devote his efforts to stopping the Kinder Morgan pipeline and Tar sands expansion threatening our future.

DIMITRI LASCARIS: This is Dimitri Lascaris for The Real News Network. Despite the elaborate posturing at the just concluded COP23 Climate Summit in Bonn, Germany, not everyone is buying that Canada is a climate champion. The Trudeau government continues to support the Alberta tar sands, which is not only the largest industrial project on the planet, but is also the dirtiest and most polluting. Former NASA scientist, Dr. James Hansen, has called the continued exploitation of the tar sands “game over for the planet, and necessarily for the human species.”On November 15th, to express their peaceful opposition to Justin Trudeau’s commitment to the tar sands industry, two Canadian youths were arrested in Vancouver, B.C. at a press conference where they challenged the Prime Minister on his climate policies and his government’s approval of the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion. If that expansion is completed, Kinder Morgan’s trans mountain pipeline will carry far more highly toxic, diluted bitumen from Alberta’s tar sands to Canada’s west coast, where it will be transported by tankers to other countries, including the United States.When these two youths confronted Trudeau, they stated that this most recent election was the first national election in which they were old enough to vote, and that they voted for him because he promised climate action. But now, they said, he’s pushing through the trans-mountain pipeline expansion and betraying his commitment to protect their generation and subsequent generations.With us to discuss the Kinder Morgan pipeline controversy, Trudeau’s climate policy and their arrest are the two protestors themselves. Joining us from Vancouver is Haley Zacks, a 20 year-old climate campaigner with Stand.earth in Vancouver. Also joining us is Jake Hubley, a 24 year-old community organizer from the city of Vancouver. Thank you very much, both of you, for joining us today.HALEY ZACKS: Thank you for having us.DIMITRI LASCARIS: So Haley, I’d like to begin with you. First of all, could you tell us please what the purpose of this November 15th press conference was?HALEY ZACKS: Justin Trudeau went in Vancouver to meet with the U.N. Ministerial Defense Committee, so he was there as part of this conference. And the specific part that we were attending was a press conference to discuss the previous commitments made to the U.N. by Prime Minister Trudeau. However, he was in Vancouver and since he’s approved the pipeline about a year ago, the Kinder Morgan pipeline, he hasn’t met with the public; he’s just been doing press events or private events. So, we decided to take the public to him through this press conference.DIMITRI LASCARIS: Were you invited to this event, or did you find creative ways to get yourselves inside?HALEY ZACKS: We found creative ways to get in.DIMITRI LASCARIS: So, Haley, what did you say to the Prime Minister when you had the opportunity to speak to him?HALEY ZACKS: I said that Jake and I are youth that voted for Justin Trudeau in our first ever federal election, and we voted for him on his promise for change and those promises were real climate action and reconciliation with indigenous nations in Canada. And then he went and approved the Kinder Morgan pipeline and you cannot meet those commitments to climate action and reconciliation when approving a detrimental tar sands pipeline that’s going through indigenous territory.And I also mentioned that we’re young people and we’re scared of what climate change means for our generation and future generations. And approving a pipeline that is going to produce 8.8 million gallons of CO2 of emissions equivalent to 2.2 million cars on the road means that he’s not taking climate change seriously.DIMITRI LASCARIS: And Jake, what did the Prime Minister say, if anything, in response to these comments?JAKE HUBLEY: He gave us his nice eyes and his smile and at the end kind of when we were being dragged out, he said something along the lines of, “It’s so great to see young people fighting for what they believed in. Please continue your activism.” Which to me, if he’s really supporting activism, he wouldn’t be shoving a pipeline down our throats at the same time.DIMITRI LASCARIS: And he encouraged this activism as you were being removed from the premises?JAKE HUBLEY: That’s right, yeah.DIMITRI LASCARIS: And so, Jake, what did the police say to you? What was their explanation for arresting you, in effect?JAKE HUBLEY: So, the police removed us in interest of safety. The charges we were going to be charged with were criminal mischief and obstruction of justice. There was also a couple loose things said around using a fake ID, which we used as freelance journalists to get into the conference. And then our charges were later dropped outside.DIMITRI LASCARIS: And what explanation, Haley, did the police give to you and Jake for dropping the charges? And were you released with any conditions attached?HALEY ZACKS: We were released with the condition that if we committed any sort of, the police officer that we were dealing with said “anything as stupid” as we had done that day, that these charges would resurface. So, anything that we’re charged with in the future – if we are caught protesting or obstructing construction for the Kinder Morgan pipeline – that we could have these charges reappear on our criminal records. The charges of obstruction of justice and criminal mischief could reappear.DIMITRI LASCARIS: Now Jake, it’s emerged that Justin Trudeau was, in fact, courting the oil sector while campaigning in 2015, and he never promised to curtail oil sands and tar sands production; he was just selective in disclosing his true intentions. Does that surprise you? Were you under the impression that the Prime Minister would have a much more progressive policy on the environment?JAKE HUBLEY: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, his campaign was really to appeal to my generation; the generation who voted for him and gave him power to be leadership, and that sounded like strong climate action, real change, and renewed reconciliation with First Nations, and that’s simply not happening. He also promised to implement UNDRIP, United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. That, so far, isn’t happening. One of those, something within that is free, prior, and informed consent for First Nations, particularly around economic projects. And meanwhile, he has approved the Kinder Morgan pipeline, which goes through indigenous territory without their consent.DIMITRI LASCARIS: Now, Federal Environment Minister, Katherine McKenna, was sending out tweets from COP23 in Bonn about the pitfalls of coal. There was a lot of discussion by the Canadian delegation about coal. And according to Minister McKenna, “Burning coal is responsible for 41 percent of our global emissions.” In addition, when President Trump announced the US would pull out of the Paris Accord, the Canadian government issued a statement which said, “We are deeply disappointed that the United States federal government has decided to withdraw from the Paris agreement. Canada is unwavering in our commitment to fight climate change and support clean economic growth.”Now, this whole business about coal, Minister McKenna at COP23 took what appeared to be a leading role in forming an anti-coal alliance, which a number of states signed on to. But in an interview with Der Spiegel in the German language, she acknowledged that even under this plan – if, in fact, it is implemented – Canada would still be generating energy powered by coal beyond 2060; for some period of time beyond 2060. When you add it all up – and my question’s really to the both of you – taking into account the initiatives in regard to coal and any other environmentally friendly initiatives that the Trudeau government has pursued, do you think that this is a government that is really pursuing a different course of action from its predecessor under Stephen Harper, or are the differences largely rhetorical and cosmetic?HALEY ZACKS: If I could start, I would say that a lot of them have been cosmetic. I think that what’s important to recognize when we’re talking about COP is that the commitments that Justin Trudeau made in Paris in his first COP as Prime Minister were actually Harper’s commitments. So, those aren’t strong promises at all if we understand what the previous government was about in terms of climate change. So, one was that Justin Trudeau is only tied to the commitments that the Harper government had made to keeping promises to COP. And then the second being that even just the Kinder Morgan pipeline alone stops us from meeting the bare minimum commitments that we made in Paris. The emissions and the impact of building this pipeline will stop us from ever being able to meet our very minimal commitments to tackle climate change. So arguably, anything else we’re doing is being outweighed by the fact that we’re emitting way beyond what we should be.DIMITRI LASCARIS: So Jake, let me sort of approach that same question in a different way by talking about another pipeline project, the Keystone XL pipeline, which was temporarily shut down after it was detected that it was leaking on Thursday morning. 210,000 gallons of oil spilled in South Dakota from a leak in the pipeline near the town of Amherst, and this came right before the Nebraska Public Service Commission made 3 to 2 decision on Monday to approve a more costly alternative route for Keystone XL. People like President Trump and some people within Canada that are promoting the interests of the tar sands industry say that these pipelines create jobs and that they’re safer than transporting oil by train. How would you respond to those arguments, Jake?JAKE HUBLEY: I think there’s a lot of things, and I think with that spill, first of all, I think the upped the amount that was spilled; it was closer to 900,000 barrels. I’m pretty sure. Haley, you can correct me if I’m wrong.HALEY ZACKS: 900,000 liters, 800,000 liters. Sorry.JAKE HUBLEY: 800. But you know, the first thing I wrote after that was a post on Facebook, “My mouth is getting tired from all the I-told-you-so’s.” And I think that’s echoed in all the indigenous communities, especially at Standing Rock, who said this is going to happen again. It’s happened so many times, not only in our history of fossil fuel use, but especially with the trans-mountain and Kinder Morgan here. Over 80 tons in their history, and here we go again. It spilled and people’s water tables are at risk. What was the second part of that question?DIMITRI LASCARIS: My first part of it was about job creation. I suppose one cynic could argue that the jobs being created are in the oil spill cleanup business. But the second part of my question was whether this is, in fact, safer than transporting oil by train. And I think, in light of the statistics you’ve cited, there’s good reason to question that particular assumption or claim. But in terms of jobs, do you think there’s any merit at all that sort of permanent, good jobs are being created by the construction of these pipelines?JAKE HUBLEY: Yeah. In terms of jobs, what we’re seeing with Kinder Morgan is they give you these big job numbers and they’re based on really crappy economics, saying “for every one worker on the pipeline, we might have three to five workers in various Tim Horton’s there, the copy shops,” that kind of thing, and really it’s 50 permanent jobs for that whole project. And those jobs are temporary, they’re insecure especially with the fluctuating oil market, and they take people out of the communities and away from their families, which at the same time not only are they taking them away from their families, but a lot of oil workers aren’t super proud of what they’re doing.I mean, everyone has to make a living. There’s groups like Iron and Earth, who’ve been doing an amazing job at trying to advocate for the retraining and repurposing of oil workers for renewable energy so that they can have jobs in their communities and jobs that they can be proud of. And there are many statistics already that show that even in the solar industry alone there’s over 200,000 jobs, and with climate leadership in Canada there could be that many in the solar industry. Meanwhile, there are only about 23,000 jobs in the tar sands.So frankly, investing more into fossil fuels – which is a very fluctuating and dying industry, and one which has to die if we’re not to have catastrophic global warming take us – it’s actually investing in more insecure jobs for people that take them out of their families when we could be investing in long term, secure jobs in people’s communities in renewable energies for the long term. So it’s actually it’s an investment against oil workers, ironically enough, in my opinion.DIMITRI LASCARIS: And Haley, do you have anything to add to Jake’s thoughts on the job creation potential and the safety of pipelines, tar sands pipelines?HALEY ZACKS: Yeah. I think that Jake summed it up really nicely, and I think the one thing I’ll add is also all the jobs that are risked when you build a pipeline through a community. So it’s been assessed in Vancouver that the number of jobs that could be risked by a potential oil spill are in industries ranging from travel and tourism, to banking jobs that rely on having buildings directly on the water, to small businesses and restaurants. Like, the amount of jobs that would be risked in any area that is impacted by the pipeline if there is an oil spill. And as we’ve seen, it’s not if but when, like we saw with Keystone. There’s bound to be an oil spill and it’s risking way more jobs than it’s creating.JAKE HUBLEY: If I could just add, the fisheries industry is a huge one there as well. The salmon industry alone, as far as I know, is a $900 million industry a year for B.C., while also being a sacred food source for indigenous folks here who aren’t consenting to the pipeline in our community, and which are very crucial for our forests.DIMITRI LASCARIS: Well, this has been Dimitri Lascaris speaking to Vancouver based climate campaigners, Haley Zacks and Jake Hubley, who were arrested for peacefully dissenting from the Trudeau government’s climate policies at a press conference on November 15th. Thank you very much for joining us today.HALEY ZACKS: Thank you.JAKE HUBLEY: Thank you.DIMITRI LASCARIS: And this is Dimitri Lascaris for The Real News Network.

by Kurt Badenhausen – The college football bowl season kicks off this week with a slate of six games on Saturday. Twenty-fifth-ranked Boise State is the only school ranked in the top 25 in action during the first day of games with most of the bigger names taking the field in two weeks. There […]

By Rob Urban – Futures on the world’s most popular cryptocurrency surged as much as 26 percent in their debut session on Cboe Global Markets Inc.’s exchange, triggering two temporary trading halts designed to calm the market. Initial volume exceeded dealers’ expectations, while traffic on Cboe’s website was so heavy that it caused delays and […]

Bitcoin price prediction is just the start. 2017 has been a breakout year for crypto — with Bitcoin surpassing $10,000 and more than $3.8 billion raised this year in ICOs. We’ve seen truly mind-bending appreciation (like Ethereum’s 50X gains YTD) and witnessed the beginnings of countless new projects. In all the funding frenzy, we’ve […]

by Oliver McAteer – Former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, center, arrives at court (Picture: AP) Donald Trump‘s former national security adviser is reportedly prepared to testify against the president. Michael Flynn may throw Trump under the bus by telling the court he was instructed by him to contact Russians. He has already admitted […] […]

by Stephen Ulrich – a father of two girls We have come far as a society since the days when jokes about grabbing pussy could be dismissed as locker room banter, therefore excusable “among the guys.” It was more than slightly ironic that Billy Bush lost his job on Today, yet the person he was […]